Pitt Gets Embarassed By The Friars

Well that sure was some run at number 1 wasn't it? Good lord Pitt.

In case you somehow missed it... well consider yourself very, very lucky. Watching this was so painful it made watching President Obama's hour long applause-fest feel like a Robin Williams comedy special by comparison.

I mean I know that the Big East is deep and all, but this is friggin' ridiculous. There's no way Pitt should lose to that team. And if they are that flummoxed by a 2-3 zone from the Friars, I mean what the hell is it gonna be like if we match up against an athletic top-ranked squad in the tourney who switches to zone because they know we have trouble with it? I don't even want to think about it.

DeJuan Blair was in foul trouble for breathing the wrong way on a few of the different Friars. These worthless damn refs, Jamie Luckie, J.D. Collins and Mike Kitts apparently thought this was a women's game they were calling such ticky tack bull shit fouls. What a joke. Just an abysmally awful job by that worthless crew and it was a miracle I didn't put my foot through my TV. It got so bad I went online and tried to figure out what Ed Hightower was doing that prevented him from reffing the game instead of these guys, who apparently were fresh out of reffing school or something.

Still, we shouldn't make these types of excuses. Providence had no business even being in that game enough for the refs to screw us over (sorry can't help myself). But Pitt played an awful, awful game themselves. DeJuan's constant yapping to the refs after foul calls sure as hell isn't helping his cause. He was whining like he was Jim Boeheim's illegitimate son. Hey, DeJuan, coaches can pull that kinda stuff off, but I've never once seen it help a player get a call. Just shut your mouth and let Jamie do the talking. You showing up the refs is only going to irritate these grudge-bearing SOB's and make them call more on you. Some day maybe he'll learn that.

In addition, Pitt's offensive play was pretty awful. Sam's shot was only so-so, and when DeJuan is out, we need bigger numbers from him. As usual, Levance's shot was cold, and he wasn't having much luck dishing the rock, either. Ashton Gibbs was absolute money, but the other bench guys like Brad Wanamakerand Gil Brown might as well not have made the trip to Providence, they were worthless. Okay I guess Wanny was okay, but he drives me batty sometimes and I'm still pretty irritable, but Gil Brown pulled another disappearing act. He does that more than Houdini.

I also wasn't a big fan of the constant emphasis on the 3's. Only Ashton Gibbs and maybe Jermaine Dixon should be given free reign to launch treys. And while Gibbs, as I said, was doing his best Jason Kapono impersonation going 4/6 on his 3's, Dixon took (and missed) just 1 attempt. The rest of the squad was just 3/12 including 1/4 from Sam I Am. It drives me batty that Sam has altered his game so much to include these long-range shots. I know he's still scoring almost exactly as much as he did last year, but it just doesn't feel as effective to me. I understand him trying to develop some range to his game, but this just isn't working out. He's so much more effective slashing to the hope and banging around inside, I can't fathom going away from that. Especially when you consider that this season he is matched up often against players who are smaller than the guys he dominated last year now that he is playing a lot of small forward. Post those guys up, use your ridiculous physicality to punish them.

Above all else, though, the turnovers just killed Pitt. Sam and DeJuan had a ridiculous 9 turnovers. Just not taking care of the ball. And on the opposite end the defensive prowess Pitt usually displays just wasn't there at all. Providence employed a committee scoring approach mostly with 5 guys in double digits. They also took care of the ball.

Clearly this Pitt team still has some work to do, and while every team has these weird, abberation games, this team was just a mess last night and with 3 games to go, we suddenly have accumulated more questions about this squad. Not what I wanted to see.